The latest atrocity to hit our airwaves

UPDATE: Apparently, 8TV has apologized. Good to know!

Anybody saw the Ramadan ads on 8TV? Personally, I’ve given up on local television for a while now, so I missed these distasteful ads that 8TV has been airing. (And “distasteful ads”, my dear, is an understatement….)

15 seconds into the video, and I already feel offended. Not as a Chinese, but as a Malaysian. Many people are getting all worked up about the fact that the offending girl in the ads is portrayed as a Chinese, but frankly, there are far more pressing issues. Skin color and religion aside, I am beginning to wonder where my rights have gone.

Am I not allowed to wear “tight & revealing clothes”? (Very chauvinistic indeed; their attempts to censor the girl’s shoulders is laughable.)

Is “eating in public” a crime now?

Who’s to say what’s right and what’s wrong? A few narrow-minded bigots with narrow views of how the world should be? Yes, you’re allowed to have your own views, as do I. It’s when you start forcing them on the masses that it becomes a problem. They preach respect and tolerance, but sadly, do not practice these same values themselves. Respect and tolerance works both ways. It’s give and take – you can’t expect to gain respect without earning it; you can’t expect tolerance in return for such animosity towards others.

That said, I personally would not eat in the presence of someone who is fasting. It’s the polite, Malaysian thing to do. All that I’m saying is that we shouldn’t judge those who do want to eat in public. It’s a free country, after all.

Perhaps the perpetrators of this outrage filmed it with the best intentions, but the presentation clearly came out the wrong way. Maybe the people at 8TV who let these ads go on air can explain…?